Black Lager is our Sly Rye porter fermented with our lager yeast in place of the ale yeast that is normally used in the porter. It is fermented as a lager as well. We added a pound per barrel of tettnanger hops to give it a spicy, dry finish.

M: For a smaller beer(4.5ish), this has a pretty good body to it. On the full side of medium.

O: I like this a quite a lot as it reminds me of their Sly Rye Porter which is one of my favorites from Yazoo. It's full and rich with decent complexity in the taste. The nose, for me, is the only miss here. I wouldn't mind seeing this on Yazoo's regular rotation. Good job fellas.

This was released as a small, limited batch for the brewery's taproom only. This is the first time I've had a lager brewed by Yazoo so I'm interested to see how it turned out.

The appearance was black in color and had a good tan head of a finger or two. Due to the lighting in the taproom, I couldn't tell anything about the clarity. Lacing was good on the glass.

The first aroma I got was the roasted malts. There are also notable floral hop smells, as well as some spiciness in the background. The brewer's notes say it was dry-hopped at the end, which would enhance the hop aromas.

The initial flavors I tasted were the dark, roasted malts, with a dry, coffee-like character. This was followed by the bitterness of the hops. Bitterness was in the medium range, but this is probably the most bitter schwarzbier I've tasted.

Mouthfeel was crisp and clean, with a dry finish that has equal parts roastiness and bitterness.

Overall I think this is a good beer. In my opinion, a little more malt character would make it even better. I'm looking forward to more lagers from Yazoo in the future!